Grayle

“ Beresford was limp and crowing, I breathless and sweating before it occurred to me to use my feet. Exploring for Grayle's shins with my heel, I made sure of my mark and lashed out and up as hard as I could kick. It is to be presumed that I caught him on his injured knee, for I heard a gasp of pain, we were jerked abruptly backwards, and Grayle slowly subsided, like a wounded bull in the ring, dragging us on top of him. For a moment we lay motionless; then I heard Beresford's struggles for breath beginning again with feverish, rumbling acceleration. ”

“ She believed that Louis Delenski must be alive and, for some mysterious reason, in hiding. Twice, and only twice (Mary reminded Sister Grayle) , he had made a sign. Once he had intervened to save his wife from engaging herself to Don Shelby, and again to prevent her going through the tragic farce of marriage. But Sister Grayle sent a long telegram to Don Shelby at a hotel where (Mary had told her) he stayed when in Paris. “Mary much worse. We fear she may be going from us. Come soon if only to say good-by. She may regain full consciousness toward the last and ask for you.” ”

“ Here she stopped for a moment, clenched the firm white hand, and then scornfully waved it, left the sentence unfinished, and broke into another.
"Going with the world, of course we must march over those who stand against it. But when one man stands single-handed against our march, we do not despise him; it is enough to crush. I am very glad I did not see Louis Grayle when I was a girl of sixteen." Again she paused a moment, and resumed: "Louis Grayle was the only son of a usurer, infamous for the rapacity with which he had acquired enormous wealth. ”

“ Can any two persons be more totally unlike each other, not merely as to form and years, but as to all the elements of character, than the Grayle of whom you read, or believe you read, and the Margrave in whom you evidently think that Grayle is existent still? ”

“ The diseased imagination resembles those mirrors which, being themselves distorted, represent distorted pictures as correct.
"And even this Memoir of Sir Philip Derval's—can you be quite sure that you actually read the part which relates to Haroun and Louis Grayle? You say that, while perusing the manuscript, you saw the Luminous Shadow, and became insensible. The old woman says you were fast asleep. May you not really have fallen into a slumber, and in that slumber have dreamed the parts of the tale that relate to Grayle,—dreamed that you beheld the Shadow? ”

“ As for Madalena de Santiago, for a time she had enjoyed thinking herself in love. There were reasons, she knew, why she could not hope to be the man's wife, and if he had chosen a plain woman to help him on in the world she would have made no objection to his marriage.
But at first sight she had realized that Annesley Grayle, shy and unconscious of power to charm as she was, might be dangerous. ”

“ Grayle was very active in the summer of 1916. I could see him drawing together and co-ordinating the scattered groups of disaffected critics, and my mind went back to George Oakleigh's account of the "Stunt Artists." There was the Liberal Ginger Group, the Conservative Ginger Group, the Mesopotamia Group, the Dardanelles Group, all [Pg 150] firing occasional volleys into the arms and legs of the Ministry, none daring to fire at the head or heart. The apparently strongest man in the House at this time was Sir Edward Carson. ”

“ Margrave becomes identified with the Louis Grayle of whom you had previously heard an obscure and, legendary tale, and all the anomalies in his character are explained by his being that which you had contended, in your physiological work, it was quite possible for man to be,—namely, mind and body without soul! You were startled by the monster which man would be were your own theory possible ”

“ One side of her did want it: the side she knew best and longest as herself, Annesley Grayle, a timid girl brought up conventionally, and taught that to rely on others older and wiser than she was the right way for a well-born, sheltered woman to go through life. The other side, the new, desperate side that Mrs. Ellsworth's "stuffiness" had developed, was not looking for any means of escape; and this side had seized the upper hand since the alarm of the burglars in the Strand. ”

“ And again Margrave laughed, not in mirth, but in mockery. The laugh and the words that preceded it were not the laugh and the words of the young. Could it be possible that Louis Grayle had indeed revived to false youth in the person of Margrave, such might have been his laugh and such his words. The whole mind of Margrave seemed to have undergone change since I last saw him; more rich in idea, more crafty even in candour, more powerful, more concentred. ”

“ Sir Philip hastened to Aleppo. There he ascertained that on the night in which Haroun died, Grayle did not disappear alone; with him were also missing two of his numerous suite,—the one, an Arab woman, named Ayesha, who had for some years been his constant companion, his pupil and associate in the mystic practices to which his intellect had been debased, and who was said to have acquired a singular influence over him, partly by her beauty and partly by the tenderness with which she had nursed him through his long decline ”

“ But all trace of the fugitives was lost.
"And now," wrote Sir Philip, "I will state by what means I discovered that Louis Grayle still lived,—changed from age into youth; a new form, a new being; realizing, I verily believe, the image which Haroun's words had raised up, in what then seemed to me the metaphysics of fantasy,—-criminal, without consciousness of crime; the dreadest of the mere animal race; an incarnation of the blind powers of Nature,—beautiful and joyous, wanton and terrible and destroying! Such as ancient myths have personified in the idols of Oriental creeds ”

“ Sir Philip's account must, at least, be nearer the truth than the lady's, because Louis Grayle could not, according to English law, have been tried on a capital charge without being present in court. Mrs. Poyntz tells her story as a woman generally does tell a story,—sure to make a mistake when she touches on a question of law; and—unconsciously perhaps to herself—the woman of the World warps the facts in her narrative so as to save the personal dignity of the hero, who has captivated her interest, not from the moral odium of a great crime, but the debasing position of a prisoner at the bar. ”

“ Ellsworth screamed him down. "The girl doesn't darken my doors another hour. I don't know who you are, and I don't want to know. But with or without you, Annesley Grayle leaves my house to-night."
"Mrs. Ellsworth, surely you haven't stopped to think what you're saying!" protested Ruthven Smith. "You can't turn a girl into the street in the middle of the night with a young man you don't know, even if she is engaged to him." ”

“ O'Rane himself, most sympathetic with men and least understanding of women, gave her the keys and cheque-book of his life, imagining that undemonstrative, uncaressing fidelity would meet with like return; Beresford offered a romantic devotion which posed her frigidly among mountain snows and would have sent him through fire to avenge an insult to his idealised conception. And Grayle had strode in, compelling and indifferent, slighting and frightening her alternately, at a time when she was instinctively yearning to be called to order, taken in hand, shaken and even beaten. ”

“ However, young men at college who want money are less scrupulous about descent than boys at Eton are. Louis Grayle found, while at college, plenty of wellborn acquaintances willing to recover from him some of the plunder his father had extorted from theirs. ”

“ When the girl had switched on the lights of the two-branched chandelier over the dining table she beckoned to her companion, who noiselessly followed her from the dark corridor into the room. There, with one sweeping glance at the dull red walls, the oil-painted landscapes in sprawling gilt frames, the heavy plush curtains, the furniture with its "saddle-bag" upholstery, the common Turkish carpet, and the mantel mirror with tasteless, tasselled draperies, "Nelson Smith" seemed to comprehend the deadly "stuffiness" of Annesley Grayle's existence. ”

“ She must think for an instant. She must pray. But suddenly two strong hands lifted her up by the shoulders and set her in a chair. Don Shelby had pushed wide open the door Sister Grayle had left ajar, and had come in.
She saw, by a wild glance at his face, that he had seen what lay on the dressing-table—and the bottle of chloral which was now in plain sight. But though he had snatched her up from her knees, to get her out of his way, he seemed no longer conscious that she was in the room.
“Mary!” he called. “Louis sha'n't take you. You can't be dead. You shall not be dead! ”

“ She had remembered the other parcel, almost the mate of this, which she herself—to her deep regret—had sent out by the postman to Mary in the garden at Beaulieu. Mary had made no secret what that parcel held, or what it had meant for her. Sister Grayle knew the whole truth, and she sympathized with Don—a man after her own heart. She had turned sick at sight of the trim parcel arriving on Mary's wedding-day. “Too horrible, if it's to begin all over again!” she said to herself. “There's some awful mystery—a cruel mystery. I don't believe Delenski's alive.” ”

“ A phantom might delude my eye, a human will, though exerted at a distance, might, if the tales of mesmerism be true, deprive me of movement and of consciousness; but neither phantom nor mesmeric will could surely remove from the table before me the material substance of the book that had vanished! Was I to seek explanation in the arts of sorcery ascribed to Louis Grayle in the narrative? I would not pursue that conjecture. Against it my reason rose up half alarmed, half disdainful. Some one must have entered the room, some one have removed the manuscript. ”

“ He was too wild to distinguish himself by academical honours, but my father said that the tutors of the college declared there were not six undergraduates in the University who knew as much hard and dry science as wild Louis Grayle. He went into the world, no doubt, hoping to shine; but his father's name was too notorious to admit the son into good society. The Polite World, it is true, does not examine a scutcheon with the nice eye of a herald, nor look upon riches with the stately contempt of a stoic; still the Polite World has its family pride and its moral sentiment. ”

“ But Roger refused. "No, dear," he said. "Soon we shall be in the harbour at Samoa. There is plenty to do. I want to be on hand with George to do it. Let Dr. Grayle take you [Pg 285] to Maxime. He will know how long and how much it is best for him to talk."
"We will be in harbour so soon?" exclaimed Virginia. "The Countess! She will try to get away, you know."
"She'll try in vain," responded Roger. "We won't give her a boat."
"But there'll be ships and boats in the harbour. She may call for help, and make us trouble." ”

“ Ellsworth's sharp tongue would accuse her of foolishness or worse. But now Annesley wondered at her bondage. If only the man upstairs could escape, never again would she be afraid of this old tyrant.
"You don't need to tell me how long you have been in," said Mrs. Ellsworth, blissfully ignorant that the iron chain was broken, and enjoying her power to wound. "I've been sitting up watching the clock. My fire's nearly out, and no more coals in the scuttle, the servants all three snoring while I am kept up. If I'm in bed with a cold to-morrow I shall have you to thank, Miss Grayle." ”

“ So, at last, they were off; and no sad-faced girl in black had appeared. Besides the original party of four, there was only a little dark, keen-eyed English doctor, taken from his practice in Mentone. He looked like a man who would know how to keep a secret, and Kate wondered whether the mystery of the Bella Cuba were a mystery to Dr. Grayle. [Pg 113]
"Miss Dalahaide will come on board at Naples," Kate said to herself when it became certain that they would stop there. "She is well known in Mentone, no doubt, and didn't wish it to leak out that she was going on this yachting trip." ”

“ It does not like to be cheated,—I mean, in money matters; and when the son of a man who has emptied its purse and foreclosed on its acres rides by its club-windows, hand on haunch, and head in the air, no lion has a scowl more awful, no hyena a laugh more dread, than that same easy, good-tempered, tolerant, polite, well-bred World which is so pleasant an acquaintance, so languid a friend, and—so remorseless an—enemy. In short, Louis Grayle claimed the right to be courted,—he was shunned ”

“ I could listen no more; I turned to the door and fled down the stairs, and heard, as I fled, a low chant: feeble and faint, it was still the old barbaric chant, by which the serpent is drawn from its hole by the charmer.
CHAPTER LXXVII. To those of my readers who may seek with Julius Faber to explore, through intelligible causes, solutions of the marvels I narrate, Margrave's confession may serve to explain away much that my own superstitious beliefs had obscured. To them Margrave is evidently the son of Louis Grayle. ”

“ The arms of the chairs put forth hands, and pinched the spirit-rappers, who sprang up and ran off, pursued by their chairs. This piece of mechanical pantomime was a triumph of Lord Curryfin's art, and afforded him ample satisfaction for the failure of his resonant vases. CIRCE Now, Gryllus, we may seek our ancient home In my enchanted isle. GRYLLUS Not yet, not yet. Good signs are toward of a joyous supper. Therein the modern world may have its glory, And I, like an impartial judge, am ready To do it ample justice. ”